Four Times Starsky Waited for Hutch, And One He Didn’t

951

Exactly what the title says:))

 

Thanks to Kaye and Susan for their enthusiasm and suggestions.

This story is related to Shootout, the Plague and Sweet Revenge as specific episodes.

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Racket, racket, racket…

Starsky’s throat is so dry he can barely swallow, which is probably just as well because it hurts when he does. He shifts a little as his grip on the water jug slides, and the world goes gray again. He groans aloud and thinks about giving in, about passing out and just letting his body and mind do their worst without him. Instead he bites his cheek and alerts his brain to the fact that it ain’t over ’til it’s over, ’til the fat lady sings, ’til the… Enough. He has to focus. Hutch is out front with no back up, a roomful of fretful diners and two hungry killers. And being pissy and calm all at once, if the yells between lightning bursts are anything to go by.

So the gray can go fuck itself, because the life he has with this man is not going to end on a bug-ridden sofa on the turn of his stomach. Nothing can happen to Hutch because he wanted clams instead of eggs. He would never survive such a thing and he and this crazy world both know it.

So he waits, his cheek sore, and his hand slick and clammy on a watch he can barely see.

Racket, racket, lotta racket…

******

He holds Hutch’s hand when he first sits down next to him, as if he can squeeze a reaction from Hutch’s eyelids out of his fingers. But the skin is cold and shrivelled around the veins on the back of his hand, and Starsky’s heart clenches with unease at the feel of it. So he lays it carefully back down on the bed and contents himself with the flat of his left palm on the bed sheet, just above the solar plexus, he figures. Which is lifting up and down with calming regularity now.

He eases the crick in hs neck and resists the urge to tilt his wrist to look at his watch again. The nurse said an hour or two, and he’s pretty sure no more than ten minutes have passed since he sat down twenty minutes ago. Shit. Six minutes. Only six, and Hutch hasn’t so much as twitched.

He’s exhausted and far too grimy for a hospital room. But the panic that coiled up in his chest as soon as the words ‘Find Callendar’ became his mantra won’t let him go just yet. Judith’s told him he did it in time, she’s showed him diagrams and explained in non-Latin English how it’s all going to work.

Doesn’t matter. Hutch is the one — the only one — who can make it real. So he’ll hold his body upright a while longer, and just sit here and let his hand lift and settle… lift and settle… lift and settle…

“Starsk?”

A hand in his hair and a husked-out whisper later and it’s real. He has no idea how long he’s slept.

“You okay, Starsk?”

His throat is so dry and tight he can barely speak, so he reaches back for the hand starting to fall from his hair and holds it. On an impulse, he presses his lips slowly to the back of it and notes the warmth before he lays it back down on the bed. He stretches up, leans close and puts everything he can into a smile, waiting patiently until Hutch can manage one back.

“Crick in my neck, Blondie. All your fault.”

******

What he needs is a smile. Not the lip-curling, shit-eating grin that Hutch has started specializing in, but a small one, a real one, one that comes with a nose-pinch more than it does a belly-laugh. They are the ones which Hutch used to shine on victims to make them feel less victimized. And on Starsky, who would always have to give him one back whether he wanted to or not.

So the small smiles are the ones he misses.

He pulls up outside Huggy’s, looks at his watch and debates going in. Hutch didn’t call him, Huggy did, and he’s not really in the mood to deal with another belligerent dose of Hutch-against-the-world philosophizing. So he stays where he is and chooses not to think about what it means that he doesn’t want to get out of the car, and that the sun is still in the sky and Huggy has had to call him.

“Heya Starsk!”

Not bad, Huggy’s been able to keep him reasonably sweet and upright this time.

“Hutch.”

“You shoulda come in, buddy.”

Hutch leans in toward the open window on Starsky’s side and lets loose with a shoulder cuff that almost misses.

“Maybe next time. You wanna move round, Hutch? I got…uh…laundry to go pick up.”

He waits, refusing to watch Hutch take too long to walk the required number of steps to the passenger side.

“Angie was there, Starsk. You remember her? The one that can do that thing with the fruit..? Man, she said this thing to this guy…” And pretty soon Hutch is spilling out a story as Starsky drives them away, inviting him to join in the punchline with a bark of laughter and another slap to his shoulder.

All Starsky can do is hang on to the wheel and remember all over again that he misses those small, quiet smiles. The ones that come from the heart and not the bottle.

******

He wishes they’d take the clock down because it never tells him anything encouraging. Yesterday, it told him that he’d slept too early and had an entire night to get through, and today it’s telling him that it’s far-too-fucking-long o’clock until Elsie gets here with his next shot. Telling him what day it is would be better.

The door swishes and he looks up. But it’s Huggy, who bops around and distracts him with tales of a bar fight stopped by his third cousin Elmo’s ex-wife’s boyfriend’s sister… He loves Huggy, but he can’t listen to this shit without a beer in one hand and a pool-cue in the other. He clearly gives himself away because Huggy suddenly stops talking, passes on the message that Captain America is tied up and will swing by later, and then takes his leave. No worries. He and Huggy gave up being offended by each other long ago.

After that it’s Edith, who has taken to dropping by every now and again, to hold his hand, cluck about her boys, and pass on the occasional sassy titbit about the Captain. It’s nice, and if he could eat the meals she spends her time describing, it’d be a whole lot nicer. But it still doesn’t make the clock move and he finds himself faking sleep because it’s easier — and kinder – than faking interest.

Last and least he gets Linda. Of all the girls who could have come to sniffle by his bedside, he gets this lip-chewing airhead, who he wasn’t even dating at the time. She seems to regard him as some kind of project — a Humanity Badge, Hutch says. She stays for ten unbearable minutes, blows a bubble, pecks his cheek and is gone. One day when he has the strength to enjoy it he’s going to tell her to go get a puppy instead.

Tick-tock and he’s alone again.

Him and the clock.

And then his fever spikes a little, as it sometimes does of an afternoon, and the next thing he knows there are two people in the room and something cool on his forehead.

“Heya, Starsk. Quit faking and open your eyes, I got you something.”

He clears his throat. “Better be ice cream, Hutchinson, or I ain’t opening squat.”

“And if there is ice cream in that bag, Mr Hutchinson, I’ll have something to say about it. He’ll have it later, not now.”

He hears Elsie slide a needle into the IV on his right and opens his eyes to see Hutch on his left, hooking a chair in close. Hutch takes his jacket off, hands the bag over to Elsie with an apologetic shrug, and then picks up Starsky’s hand. He has been held and touched by so many now, in so many more personal ways, yet this is the touch he still looks for. And he likes that Hutch does it whether Elsie is there or not.

“Okay, Starsk?”

He’s got Elsie working her magic on one hand, and Hutch working his on the other. And a small smile to go with it all.

These days it doesn’t get much better than Elsie, Hutch, and the promise of ice cream.

******

“Hutch!”

“Hey, thought I was picking you up from physio-”

“Don’t physio me, Hutch, what the hell is that on your arm?”

“Starsk, it’s nothing. Jesus. Calm down, will you?” Hutch comes forward with what he no doubt thinks is a reassuring expression on his face, but all Starsky can see is the white on his left forearm, wrist to elbow, and the smudge of purple high on his right cheek.

He knows his touch is not going to be gentle, but he reaches out and grabs Hutch’s chin anyway, and pulls him sideways a step until he’s under the kitchen light.

“It’s swollen.”

“Good. I’d hate it to hurt like this and not be.”

He glares at him, his heart still banging, unwilling to let Hutch slow it down with a smile.

“Not funny. I swing by Metro to do some form-filling, and the first thing they fucking ask me is how you are. I look like a dummy who doesn’t know anything-”

“Starsk-”

“Because, of course, I don’t know that my lame-brain partner has gone and gotten himself whacked into a dumpster-

“I didn’t get whacked into anything-”

“-and then not had the sense to radio it in til he was at the hospital having stitches-”

“Only two-”

“-and being checked for concussion.”

“Which I haven’t got, by the way.”

“Pity.”

“Says you.”

And just like that Starsky can’t keep it up. Goddamn Hutch and the way he smiles.

But he’s not getting off that lightly. Before Hutch can get that smug look to him, Starsky plants his feet, pulls him forward a step and wraps him in both arms, reveling in the strength he’s capable of again, and a strength which clearly takes Hutch by surprise if that squeak of protest is anything to go by. He squeezes harder just to be sure. Physio has made him cry in ways the world will never know, but he has won his shit back, and it’s about time this blond idiot realized.

“Starsk…”

Sounds a little strangled, but he doesn’t care. Mindful of Hutch’s bruise, he presses his cheek into his partner’s left one and lets him have it.

“Four months since I’ve been out there with you. I’m one week away, and you are not going to do this.” Hutch’s hair is tickling him, so he lifts his chin a little. “You are not going to check things out in alleys when you’re off duty, you are not going to slip, and you are not going to choke on solid food. You hear me?” He breathes in, and gets that mixture of cologne, sweat and Hutch that he reckons he could track through any jungle.

“Not after four months and one fucking week, Hutch.”

It’s not supposed to, but it comes out as a whisper.

He gets a squeeze back and it’s just as well, because he probably couldn’t manage another sentence right now.

They stay like this until Hutch pulls back a little and asks how Starsky would feel about a solid pizza. Starsky tells him he thought he’d never ask.